The invention relates to an appliance comprising an operating unit.
Various appliances are known from the related art, such as watches or mobile phones, having a mechanically-actuatable actuation element which can be actuated by the user, after which a pre-determined action is triggered. The appliances are used by senior citizens or other persons requiring assistance for example, in order to actuate the actuation element if need be, and in doing so, send an emergency call to a central control center. The emergency call is transferred in such cases via a corresponding communication interface of the appliance to the central control center, which can then locate the appliance with a suitable method (e.g. GPS) and provide assistance.
Appliances which include the actuation element described above are either not protected at all or at least only partly protected from an unintentional activation of the actuation element. A known approach with such appliances is to recess the mechanically-actuatable actuation element into the housing of the appliance, so that the likelihood of an unintentional actuation is at least reduced. Another known approach is to embody the actuation element so that it can only be mechanically actuated by applying increased force. Nonetheless there is still the risk of a specific mechanical influence actuating the actuation element unintentionally and thus of an emergency call or a pre-determined action being triggered.